It has been a beautiful fall! I have put in a request that this weather continue for at least a couple more months.
Recognition for Titan Hill
I received word from the Iowa Department of Education on October 12 that the Lewis Central School District has earned a Breaking Barriers Award. The Breaking Barriers award recognizes school districts that are making significant strides in closing the academic achievement gap. Specifically, the award this year honors districts that saw improvement of 20 percent or more in at least one subgroup of students on reading or math test results while at the same time not seeing achievement decline by more than 5 percent in any other subgroup of students. The Lewis Central School District data shows that improvements were made with low-income students in grade 5 mathematics. The awards presentation is scheduled for November 16 the Iowa Department of Education. Congratulations Titan Hill!
Informational Videos
Kim Jones who serves as an Assistant Principal at the High School and as a Central Office Administrator working with curriculum and instruction has created some informational videos about the Iowa Core Curriculum and professional development initiatives currently going on in the district. I would encourage you to watch these videos. Go to the district website: www.lewiscentral.org. At the top of the page find the tab labeled “Departments”. This is a pull down menu. Select Curriculum and Instruction. Then in the left-hand margin select Professional Development videos. The following videos will be listed:
Iowa Core Curriculum
Concept-Based Instruction
Understanding by Design
Instruction Planned
Professional Learning Communities
Certified Enrollment
The number of resident students determines the amount of state aid that we receive each year. Actually, the amount of state aid that we will receive next year is determined by the number of resident students on “count day” this past October 3rd. Our resident enrollment is down 28 students from a year ago (2,476 compared to 2,504). If the legislature sets allowable growth at 0% for 2012/2013 that would mean that we would receive $164,724 less in state aid next year than we will receive this year ($5,883 per student X 28 students). Open enrollment/contract in increased to 598 this year. We had 107 open enroll out resulting in a net gain of 491 students. The end result is that we have 2 fewer students in the district (PK-12) this year than we did a year ago. The total number of students (PK-12) is 3,076 this year compared to 3,078 a year ago.